Kay Bailey Hutchison: “amendment No. 534 is the Careers to Classrooms Act of 2001. I have several cosponsors who have worked very hard with me…”

“amendment No. 534 is the Careers to Classrooms Act of 2001. I have several cosponsors who have worked very hard with me to put this amendment together because many of us had ideas along the same line. I thank very much my cosponsors: Mr. Wellstone, Mr. DeWine, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Crapo, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Schumer, and Mr. Biden. We have all worked on this issue because probably every one of us has had some experience that caused us to realize we must do more to recruit teachers into our classrooms. I had the experience of having a very good friend in Greenville, TX, who was a Latin major in college. She taught Latin in a private school, but when she moved to Greenville, she did not have the teacher certification for public school, so she was not able to teach Latin. Well, they didn't offer Latin in Greenville High School, even though they very much wanted to do so. But she was not qualified to teach because she didn't have the teacher certification, even though she had taught Latin in private school and that was her major in college. So I started thinking, what are we doing, when we have a shortage of teachers, especially in rural classrooms, in urban classrooms, in high-growth areas, where we have subjects that are not being taught-- subjects such as math, science, languages--yet we have artificial barriers to bringing people who have expertise into the classroom?”